Within the Black (Those Spaces Between)
by PhoenixDragonDreamer
Summary: You are old-old-old and faded, the brightness of those you love has fallen into the black – they took you with them (but never knew). They thought they had only left you behind.


**Warnings:** Angst, Horror, Dark!Fic, Character Study, Introspection  
**A/N:** Written for **who_contest**'s Prompt:_**Black**_ (yus, tis right up my alley!), comprised of my usual overly angsty-thinky ramblings. Standard wandery-blithery within (youse has been warned) with more than a touch of horror and despair to sweeten the 'bzuh?!'. Wasn't really sure what was happening here, only that it has been poking at me the last few days - so I finally put it to paper. Mostly unbeta'd and written in one go, so please forgive any mistakes and/or blatant vagueness. As always, I apologize for any repetition, misspellings, sentence fails, grammatical oh-noes and general horridness. Unbeta'd fic is overly-thinky/blithery and unbeta'd.  
**Disclaimer(s): **_I do not own the scrumptious Doctor or his lovely companions. That honor goes to the BBC and (for now) the fantastic S. Moffat. The only thing that belongs to me is this fiction - and I am making no profit. Only playing about!_

* * *

You see them – the stars…shining pinpricks of glorious light and color amongst the black. You share those stars and the worlds in between – dazzling those special few with their blinding harmony and life.

You keep the black spaces you sail for yourself. The deepest, truest black only penetrated with those searing splashes of dizzy white-white-white-blue and if you close your eyes

_for just a moment_

you can see the black behind your eyelids and it feels like home.

**O-o-O**

Sometimes when it gets to be too much

_when the blood pounding through your veins is too loud and_ alive

you close your eyes tight-tight-tight and wrap yourself in grief: the black is never black _enough_…yet when you press the tips of your fingers to the hollows of your eyes

_and hold your breath_

you can see the stars shooting white and red and purple-blue through the endless space behind your eyelids and the black seems deeper, richer…and you feel less afraid.

**O-o-O**

The very shadows writhe with smoky, ghostly figures

_velvet_ _black on silky grey_

and you take comfort when you become one of them. One of the faceless crowd unmarred by the harsh reality of light and warmth and color. You are old-old-old and faded, the brightness of those you love has fallen into the black – they took you with them (but never knew). They thought they had only left you behind.

They always think that.

**O-o-O**

The shadows are long and steep with secrets; if you press yourself against them and let your sense spread

_listen, touch, taste, smell, see,_ know

you can almost hear the sighing sound of the ones lost between the spaces, the cracks of those shadows. The unwilling ghosts of the future and past, sliding between the motes of dust that cake your boots and steal your breath. You know them intimately now…they don't frighten you anymore.

How can you be afraid of strangers that welcome you home with sharp smiles, chilled fingers and dead eyes? Their lack of light, warmth, color is a comfort you should have known long ago – but you were too afraid of yourself to pull away from the light.

But when the light falls away from you – when it slides ice into your veins and stills your hearts – you have to face what you have always, always known

_since the Great War and far away from everything that used to matter_

the ice, silence and shadows are of your own making. They are all the home you have ever known.

**O-o-O**

You breathe the shadows and slip quiet through the cracks as those who once held your hand and ran-ran-ran away with you beg you to stay in the light from far away and time forgotten. You would, but you have become afraid of things that are not yourself. You cannot see without round rims that don't fit. You can't breathe without the tie at your throat torn away and thrown far from you.

You can't miss them if you breathe the dark and let it breathe you.

**O-o-O**

You used to fly through the black, seeking out the brightest stars and the dazzling warmth and life they offered; sharing them with those precious beings that made them possible, that made them _true_. Now you fly through the light to fall into the black, lungs chilled with those starless spaces and if you press your fingers to your eyes, if you hold your breath, you can see past the shadows to the ones who loved you when they should never, ever have made that mistake. And if you press harder you can almost recall their light, their life, their delirious warmth and hear their laughter through the pounding of blood in your ears.

It seeps into you through the faded greys and twilight blue of your years. It warms the ice that slides through your veins. It recalls days and places you have/might have been – when nights were kinder and days were filled with curiosity and wonder.

Now the nights are no longer kind. The days slide by in a blur of incandescence and noise. You drift to the shadows and know them in a way you never have before. The darkness becomes home and the light becomes terror. You have never truly known yourself before – but the real you beckons from beneath and you are helpless but to follow.

Always a weakness.

**O-o-O**

You sail and never see the stars. They become a wonder you might remember. Laughter, light and warmth are a sin bestowed upon others deemed worthy. But you don't miss it. You cherish the frost in your veins, because it reminds you that you are not alive. You slide through the shadows like blood over pavement and marvel at how this once seemed difficult, when now it seems that it all you should have ever known.

And if you press your fingers to your eyelids

_now_

and hold your breath - all you see is the endless smear of black, the color of the spaces between, the shadows you walk through that fall in your hearts. You press it against you (that endless chilly reality) and call it yours (with a mouth that smiles full of teeth) and know that finally

_finally_

you are truly home.


End file.
